An Empire Reborn: Codex (Old Version)
by Eipok
Summary: Codex entries exploring the world and characters of An Empire Reborn.
1. Humanity and the Sol Territory

A/N: Putting this at the top, to make sure everyone will know exactly what this is. This is going to be purely Codex entries for "An Empire Reborn." I didn't want to have info-dumps in the story itself, but it's impossible to naturally work in all the background detail and world-building going on in this story.

For the first entries here, I'll be focusing on the biggest questions people might have from the story. Please tell me in reviews exactly what you are most confused or curious about, and I'll add entries here to address those subjects. That said, some things I will not be able to get in here, either because they haven't actually been revealed in the story yet, or because I simply want to leave them a mystery.

Oh, and I will be using somewhat edited versions (partly rewriting in my own words, but mostly changing or adding things to make them fit the updated lore of this story) of the Destinypedia and Mass Effect Wiki pages for a number of these. If you'd like to read the full unedited entries, you can find them there.

Also, THIS FIRST ENTRY WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE LEAKED BLACK ARMORY CUTSCENE!

* * *

 **Humanity and The Sol Territory**

Humanity

During the 21st Century, humanity made first contact with the mysterious entity that would later come to be known as the Traveler, the arrival of which ushered in a centuries-long Golden Age that saw humans colonize the newly remade worlds of Sol including Mercury, Venus, Mars, and even the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

But this Golden Age would not last. Unbeknownst to humanity, the Traveler had an ancient enemy; a powerful Darkness that precipitated the Collapse and nearly wiped out mankind, if not for the intervention of the Traveler who sacrificed itself to push back the assailing Darkness. And with its dying breath, the Traveler created Ghosts to seek out those worthy to carry on its task.

In the dark decades after the Collapse, Humans, Exos, and Awoken found the Traveler where it made its final stand and built the City—the last bastion of mankind—beneath its shadow. And from an age of chaos and death began the City Age.

Though its tenuous peace lasted for the better part of a hundred years, the City Age would ultimately come to a shattering end in the wake of the devastating Cabal invasion; with the heroic deeds of The Guardian bringing an end to the Red Legion's siege and marking the dawn of a new Golden Age.

The Speaker

The speaker acts as the head of the Consensus. The Warlock who was the original liaison to Calus - and who led all three teams to venture onto the Leviathan - became Calus' Shadow of Shadows and also took up the role of Speaker.

The Vanguard

Under Calus' rule, the Vanguard's organizational structure has been left largely intact. It is still run by the three Class Mentors. Zavala remains the Titan Mentor, and still oversees Guardian Combat Operations, for instance. There are, however, some notable changes.

Ikora was offered the position of Director of the IIS (Imperial Intelligence Service) and accepted it. She has integrated her Hidden into said IIS, and implemented new training for existing IIS Operatives. Given the vast scope of her new job, she decided to step down as the Warlock Vanguard, nominating one of her students by the name of Praxidike Meng in her place.

Cayde's replacement to the Hunter Mentorship was, in accordance with his Vanguard Dare, his killer Uldren Sov who had been resurrected as a Guardian after being killed for Cayde's death. Uldren's memories, however, were entirely gone. Seeing this as an opportunity, Emperor Calus gave his Shadow of Shadows the duty of assimilating Uldren into the Vanguard, and becoming Uldren's mentor. The Shadow of Shadows pursued this duty with great enthusiasm, seeing this as a chance to remake Uldren in their own image.

New Monarchy

New Monarchy embraced Emperor Calus' rule after being given access to the Leviathan's historical archives. They now serve as his primary advocacy group throughout known space.

Dead Orbit

Dead Orbit's mission statement never changed. It has always sought to expand humanity beyond the Sol System, making them a multi-solar species. Now it no longer had to convince humanity to expand beyond the Sol System, since the Sol System itself was safe. Nor did it need to find or develop the necessary resources to colonize beyond it. Instead, it was given the mantle of settling humans within the Empire.

It was also given the directive of advancing life-sustaining and prolonging medical technologies, as well as managing the human population's growth, including providing child care programs and incentives for having children. After all, humanity didn't have to worry anymore about limited space and resources, stuck inside the walls of the Last City. Rather, the most pressing concern was low population numbers.

Future War Cult

Seeing the Future War Cult as a potential threat to his rule, and their predictive machine as being too dangerous to be left to anyone else, Calus confiscated all material relating to the machine and ordered the Future War Cult to formally disband. With great reluctance, tempered somewhat by humanity's present and even future prosperity (according to the majority of outcomes already predicted by their machine), Lakshmi-2 agreed.

The FWC members were all offered jobs fitting their expertise. Evangelists were offered teaching roles. Technicians were offered jobs at the Department of Municipal Planning, to work on developing city planning and management AI. Lakshmi-2 was offered the role of Director of the Department of Municipal Planning but refused, opting instead to become Head of Territorial Planning for the new Sol Consensus.

The Consensus

The Consensus was the governing council of the Last City. It is composed of five members: one representative each from Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, the Future War Cult, and the Vanguard, plus the Speaker. The Consensus changed its name to the Sol Consensus and had its role expanded to encompass the entirety of what was now called the Sol Territory, formerly referred to as the Local Bubble.


	2. Other Species and Factions

**Other Species and Factions in the Sol Territory**

Awoken

The Awoken are the descendants of the crew and passengers of the Yang Liwei, a generation ship that left Earth shortly before the Collapse in an attempt to find a way to live without the Traveler, and thus refused to take a side when the Darkness attacked the Traveler. During the initial sparring between the two acasual entities, the ship was at the centerpiece of an anomaly in space-time that sucked it and all its inhabitants into a newborn universe, the Distributary, during which they lost their physical forms and reincarnated into their present ones under the direction of their captain and first queen Alis Li. Unbeknownst to Alis at the time, she was not the first to regain consciousness, but rather Mara Sov was, and it was Mara who quietly manipulated Alis into giving the Awoken physical forms that could be injured or die, as Mara believed truly omnipotent entities could not evolve or live meaningful lives.

In the Distributary's universe, time flows differently, and Awoken society has had thousands upon thousands of years to flourish and build. The centuries in which Humanity suffered the Dark Age saw the exponential growth and abundance of the Awoken in their pocket universe. Only near the end of the Dark Ages were the Awoken able to detect and confirm that they were inside a singularity - identifying this information from bits and pieces of radio transmissions that the singularity ensnared from the solar system.

The current Queen of the Awoken, Mara Sov, is alive incorporeally within her own Throne World, in a near-identical fashion to a Hive God. Her Wrath, Petra Venj, has assumed direct leadership of the Awoken while Mara Sov is "indisposed." Her official stance on Calus' Empire, and Earth's decision to join it, is "Wait and See." Already, however, reefborn awoken have begun to join the Adamantine Empire, seeing it as an opportunity to potentially regain what they once had.

Fallen

The Fallen, known in their own language as the Eliksni, are a nomadic race of insectoid pirates and scavengers descended from a once-great civilization. This is evidenced by their social organization into various Houses by the manner of meritocratic nobility, the banners and flags of which are still flown like heraldry.

They were once graced by the Traveler, which they named the "Great Machine", and were presumably uplifted by its gifts in the same manner as humanity. Their homeworld and civilization was destroyed by the Darkness in an event called the "Whirlwind." In the aftermath, the surviving Fallen became embroiled in a bloody civil war over their civilization's ruins, before achieving a tenuous peace and embarking on a journey into space to locate the Traveler in order to return to greatness. The Fallen eventually arrived at the Sol System shortly after humanity's Collapse and rediscovered the Traveler on Earth.

Coinciding with Calus' invitation for humanity to join his Empire, the Fallen known as Variks the Loyal - formerly an advisor to Queen Mara Sov of the Awoken, following her defeat of the Kell of the House of Wolves - overtly started to gather the different Fallen Houses under his own banner, that of the House of Judgement. Whether he seeks to join the Adamantine Empire or oppose it is currently not known.

Red Legion

The Red Legion is a powerful legion of the Cabal Empire which had been personally led by Dominus Ghaul from the time he was appointed to the position of Primus by Calus himself, through Ghaul's coup, to his death at the hands of the Guardian who would become the Shadow of Shadows.

After the death of their next Primus Val Ca'uor and the destruction of much of their fleet at the hands of Calus and the would-be Shadow of Shadows, the Red Legion offered little resistance to being reintegrated into Calus' Empire.

Vex

The Vex have been described as a "hyperintelligent time-spanning thought-mesh", a collective mind composed of countless component intelligences distributed across time and space. The mobile Vex machines encountered by Guardians are merely containers for these intelligences, which carry mind cores filled with milky radiolarian fluid - hypothesized to be the only remnant of their distant biological origin.

The ultimate goal of the Vex is to remake all of reality in their image. Praedyth described the Vex as being motivated by a "Pattern," which drives the Vex to either reshape or destroy everything in their path. Osiris referred to the Vex's objective as "Convergence," an outcome where all life in the universe has been converted to a simplified, digital form. As part of this ideal future, the Vex seek to bring about a state where neither the Light nor the Darkness exist any longer.

Given their nature and goals, they tend to think and act in the extreme long term, effectively working on geological or even astronomical timescales rather.

Ever since their loss of the Infinite Forest to Osiris and the Vanguard, they have largely withdrawn from the Sol System, and even outside it. It is hypothesized that the Vex have simply retreated into their Nexus, the transdimensional core of their hive mind. Whether it was their loss of the Infinite Forest that prompted this, or even potentially some unseen future threat, is unknown.

Hive

The Hive are an extragalactic race of aliens that worship and serve the Darkness. At the top of their pantheon are the three sisters who founded the Hive: Oryx, the Taken King; Savathun, The Witch Queen; Xivu Arath, The God of War.

According to the Vanguard, only Oryx's fleet has reached our galaxy. No one knows how far away the other two are, but it's only a matter of time before they arrive.

The Hive have a complex religious system based on profane rituals and the worship of a pantheon of dark gods. These Hive Gods exist in the Ascendant realm, described as a "higher plane of misery" associated with the Darkness (known to the Hive as the Deep) locked outside of physical reality, not unlike the Vex realms locked out of time. Dwelling within are "cyst universes" known as throne worlds of their own creation. Each of these worlds houses their respective god's Oversoul, which may protect them from permanent death should their corporeal bodies be destroyed.

The Hive religion is not based on any sort of conventional morality; in fact, they see morality and the "false hope of comfort" as an abomination of the living. Instead, a metaphysical principle known as the "Sword-Logic" forms the basis of the Hive's belief system. According to the Sword-Logic, it is the ultimate goal of intelligent beings to challenge one another for the right to continue existing, and a being may acquire paracausal power by defeating another being. All such power must necessarily be taken by force, not received as a gift. This is why the Hive's swords are so deadly to Guardians; they create a bridge in which the wielder saps the power of the victim.


	3. The Adamantine Empire

**The Adamantine Empire**

Calus claims to have overseen a reign of glory. His Empire was an immense military power, but valued willpower, learning, gentility, and subtlety. Debate was as celebrated as warfare. Savage pit fights coexisted with precise marksmanship and refined martial arts. The Empire crafted technological marvels that allowed every need to be met and every life to be lived in comfort.

As the Cabal Empire expanded, it encountered countless alien races and absorbed them into itself: indoctrinating their species, collecting their technology, learning their knowledge, and merging with their culture. The number of species within the Cabal Empire "defied reckoning," and examples of the things they created, whether texts, tech, or super weapons, were archived in carefully maintained athenaeum worlds for study and potential future use.

What he wishes is not only to bring back that golden age but to improve on it, making it more egalitarian and cosmopolitan.

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 **Species of the Adamantine Empire**

Cabal

The Cabal are a bipedal, hulking species that appear to be omnivorous, as evidenced by their many sharp, irregular teeth and their historic love of wine. They have wrinkled, leathery tan-grey skin, a tall skull, dark wide-set eyes with slit pupils, and a very high, inverted-V-shaped upper lip that exposes the Cabal's upper gums and fangs. They come from a warm, humid climate, so they have to be constantly hydrated within their suits. Therefore, while a resilient species, Cabal cannot survive in some environment without climate-controlled gel suits. Cabal have long lifespans, able to live well over a thousand years without any apparent infirmity.

Psions

Psions are a powerful race of clairvoyant, psionic beings who were conquered by the Cabal in the hopes of weaponizing their abilities. After building the future-predicting OXA Machine and using it against the Cabal in rebellion, the machine was destroyed and they were enslaved. They have only recently been emancipated, countless centuries later.

Clipse

The Clipse were once a more peaceful technological race who had arisen on the moon of Kaga-Clipse. However, following their centennial anniversary of global peace, an unknown alien threat unleashed a gamma-ray burst that wiped out their technology, killed everything on their planet's western hemisphere, poisoned the atmosphere, and burned a "signal" into the asteroids and comets of their solar system. The resulting collapse of civilization was complete.

As the Clipse rediscovered subsistence agriculture, the marked asteroids began to rain ceaselessly down on the planet, "seeding" it with hostile alien life. In order to combat this new enemy, the Clipse were forced to militarize in turn. As such, thousands of years after the collapse, the Clipse had become an extreme martial culture that worshiped guns and "knew only war", with the planet an eternal battleground between them and the alien horde.

It was during this time that Emperor Calus, in exile aboard his Leviathan, discovered them. He invited the Clipse to join his Loyalists. When they refused, Calus turned to conquest. The Clipse planetary defenses and moon-based interceptors proved no match for his gigantic starship, and his legions invaded the planet itself, led by a Shadow, Valus Nohr. The battle to take the Clipse capital lasted for weeks, but Nohr ultimately destroyed their forces.

Desperate, the Clipse gathered their greatest warriors and launched a boarding action against the Leviathan. Only Rull survived to reach Calus's throne room, bloody and exhausted, where the Emperor casually offered him refreshment and alliance. Bemused, Rull accepted.

Victorious, Calus now began delivering aid to the Clipse homeworld, giving them everything they needed to finally win their endless war. However, he could not repair their atmosphere.

Sindu

The Sindu are an alien race that dwells in gas giants in the "spinward marches."

When the exiled Emperor Calus discovered the Sindû, he invited them to join his Loyalists. When the Sindû refused, Calus simply conquered them, destroying their entire star-pilot corps save the Ace-Defiant Jarus, who he chose to join the Shadows. After inducting them into his Loyalists, he repaid them with a new fleet of golden interceptors and employed their talents in defense of The Leviathan.


End file.
